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"Tyndale was left with no alternative but to go to court," Mark D. Taylor, president and CEO of Tyndale House Publishers, explains. On the day before the first presidential debate, the company, which Taylor's parents started when he was 11 years old, filed the 31st lawsuit over the Department of Health and Human Services mandate that forces companies to pay for health insurance that covers abortion and contraception.

Tyndale publishes Bibles, but the company's not religious. Not in the federal government's book. Not anymore, anyway, as of Aug. 1. That was the day that the HHS mandate went into effect. Family-run businesses like Tyndale, which happen to be run by religious people who want to live their lives with some integrity, don't qualify for any kind of "accommodation" or exemption.

"The law does not give any religious-freedom exemption to faith-based operations like Tyndale," Taylor tells me. "Instead, it imposes crushing fines for employers who are doing nothing more than following their consciences ... The government is supposed to promote conscience protection, not attack it."

Tyndale exists "for an explicitly religious purpose --to publish the Bible and other Christian publications, and direct the proceeds to ministry and charity," Taylor says.

"The government's policy that publishing the Bible is not a religious activity is absurd and is disconnected from reality," he says, reflecting conversations I've had with other plaintiffs in recent months, including the president of the evangelical Wheaton College, who wasn't particularly animated on the issue -- like most Americans -- until he realized how fragile our liberties are, even here at home, if we're not vigilant.

"Never before has the federal government had the nerve to insist that all for-profit businesses are purely secular and cannot have a religious purpose," Taylor continues. "Americans today clearly agree with America's founders: The federal government's bureaucrats are not qualified to decide what faith is, who the faithful are and where and how that faith may be lived out."

"No organization could 'deal with' the crippling, draconian financial and legal penalties on faith that this mandate imposes. That is why we need relief in court," Taylor asserts.

Despite the concerns of people like Taylor, the Department of Justice has been arguing that Americans surrender their religious liberty when they choose to participate in "the marketplace of commerce" as an employer. And a judge in Missouri has announced in the case of another Catholic business owner, Frank O'Brien, that the HHS mandate is not a religious-liberty violation because O'Brien "is not prevented from keeping the Sabbath, from providing a religious upbringing for his children, or from participating in a religious ritual such as communion." That's a restrictive view of religious liberty.

Taylor is not deterred by the ruling or the administration's posture. "The Obama administration is simply wrong to argue that one's faith may only be exercised in private or in churches. We are confident that courts, all the way to the Supreme Court, will uphold and affirm our G0d-given religious freedom," Taylor says.

When, at the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney was asked how he defined the role of government, he brought up religious liberty, as he has on other occasions -- on the campaign trail, in speeches, and campaign commercials. When he first ran in the 2008 Republican primaries, he addressed the issue of "faith in America" in depth, remembering that our first president considered religion an "indispensable support" for the health of the republic, and our obligation to protect religious freedom as the first freedom, provided by G0d, not the government.

Tyndale is a reminder of why this is not just talk; the current administration has taken steps that are eroding Americans' religious freedom. And that ought to be a concern for all of us, regardless of whether or not we're Bible readers.

"According to the Declaration of Independence," Taylor reminds, echoing the Republican presidential candidate, "the role of government is to secure for the people those freedoms endowed to us by our Creator. The Bill of Rights enumerates many of those freedoms, including religious liberty. I would hope voters would evaluate whether the present administration is defending freedom or trampling on it." More of us need to be noticing this.